Argosy, Vol. 111, No. 1 — page 127: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ISLE OF He hid the relic under his grass cloak and began to waltz back again. Something, he had experienced it fifty times when going through the savage bush, warned him of danger. It was as if a cool wind had sud- denly traveled up his spine to the roots of his hair and lifted his red thatch. His right hand gripped a gun. If he could only see better through the damned thing with its sightless eyes goggling above his forehead level! Slowly he turned in his waltz, looking for danger from every quarter. | Still there was nothing visible, and still he knew well that the danger grew. It wasn’t nerves. McKay didn’t have any. It was fact. He knew how the -bush all about one might harbor hundreds, peeping at their quarry, stealing noiselessly through the thick brush, or even creeping overhead. He was watched. The place was alive with eyes. He had aroused suspicion; they might have seen him at the démit, despoil- ing the image. And they were waiting, waiting, as the tribes always did, for the signal of one in authority. There were eyes glinting through the wall-thatch, out of leafy cover—waiting. Ponda should have given the signal, and Ponda was, McKay prayed devoutly, dead. If they would only give him time enough to get to the trail. In an instant sound broke out all about him. It was like the lowing and bellowing of strayed cattle lost in the bush, the moan- ing, rising and falling roar from blown conch shells, the certain signal of invasion, of hostility, of danger. Was it from a neigh- boring tribe intent upon loot and rapine, or had the villagers crept out from their houses by back ways at some signal unperceived by him? He was within fifty yards of the begin- ning of the trail to the simg-sing grounds. when a shot was fired. It hit the sand a foot ahead of him, spurting it up. He whirled, his pistol ready. From three sides wild figures came leaping toward him. Three or four—this was no time for ac- curacy of count—had rifles, the rest spears and bows-and-arrows. He recognized the flat-nosed, yellow-haired, baboon-like face of Ponda’s chief assistant. These men were of Motonui. They came DRUMS. 117 tumbling out of the houses, vaulting over the low barriers at the entrance, yelling and discharging their weapons, a pack in full cry. A rain of bullets and arrows fell about him as he ran zigzag, tearing at his disguise. The shafts stuck in the sand, some in the voluminous cape of straw, one whupped fairly through the conical top of his mask before he got it off, and the cape discarded, the skull tucked under one arm, raced for. the entrance to the trail, like a football star racing for his touchdown with the ball. He plunged in, and a figure slipped out of the side growth and called to him: “You get your breath, Mac. I'll spot a few of these fellows.” He heard the staccato shots from Sime’s guns as he strove to recover his wind. The good scout had come back to cover him. McKay labored to get his breath back to normal, wiping the moisture away that still literally poured into his eyes. They were walled in by the thick jungle, impenetrable at that place even to their enemies. Yells of consternation echoed Sime’s target prac- tise. Soon he came back from the entrance. ‘Got your wind back, Mac? Then we’d better sprint like the devil, I reckon. The may cut us off.” : McKay nodded. He had been thinking the same thing. With the skull. tucked under his arm again he followed Sime. As they went at top speed across the sing-sing place, some one fired a rifle at them and missed. The resonant conch-shells were still blowing. They dived into the path to the beach, taking long strides as it began to descend gently to water-level, their legs taking them on willy-nilly, though their lungs were burning up, their hearts pounding against their ribs. The beach-gap opened. They could see the green of the lagoon, the white breakers, the blue sea beyond. Not as yet the schooner. They were clear. If only Tomi had got the boat back? He had had ample time. There came a crackle of rifle-fire ahead of them. A canoe glided along the lagoon, followed by another, high-prowed — high- pooped. ‘ Firing from the schooner,” said McKay pantingly. cComicloool< CO